"Within the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century which resulted in the triumph of the protestant ethic—the ideology of the propertied class—there threatened another, quite different, revolution. Its success “might have established communal property, a far wider democracy in political and legal institutions, might have disestablished the state church and rejected the protestant ethic.” In The World Turned Upside Down Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers, and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them. "
It's an amazing look at the revolutions inside the revolution, the radicals who wanted to go beyond the radicalism of the moment.
But keep in mind, to go from a standard history to this history is like studying animals on land, and then deciding to study animals in the sea. You are stepping into a different world. Christopher Hill himself once remarked that when he compared his index to the indexes of the best known histories of the period, he noted how little overlap there was.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Turned-Upside-Down/dp/014199313...
As the book summary says:
"Within the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century which resulted in the triumph of the protestant ethic—the ideology of the propertied class—there threatened another, quite different, revolution. Its success “might have established communal property, a far wider democracy in political and legal institutions, might have disestablished the state church and rejected the protestant ethic.” In The World Turned Upside Down Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers, and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them. "
It's an amazing look at the revolutions inside the revolution, the radicals who wanted to go beyond the radicalism of the moment.
But keep in mind, to go from a standard history to this history is like studying animals on land, and then deciding to study animals in the sea. You are stepping into a different world. Christopher Hill himself once remarked that when he compared his index to the indexes of the best known histories of the period, he noted how little overlap there was.